Peggy Harper POVFrank and I always said Vivian had, since the moment she was born, been a dramatic, spirited piece of work. We got pregnant before we were married and had a shotgun wedding a few weeks later. It wasn’t because we felt it was necessary to be married in order to bring a life into the world, we always thought that was an arcane societal rule, but because we knew we wanted to be together forever. So, just like the embryo that was soon to be Vivian couldn’t wait to be conceived, she also couldn’t wait to be born.
I was just finishing up dental hygiene school, which was grueling to say the least. It was 40 hours a week of classes and clinical requirements, along with the fact that I was working two nights a week at a convenience store, which I’d like to say I hated, but I think it was mainly the fact that it took away from the stretch of time where my body and brain desperately needed to recuperate. I quit when I was 28 weeks along, mainly because Frank hated that I was working at two in the morning when the only people who came into the store were either drunk or wanting to take advantage of the fact that most of the town was tucked nicely into their beds.
It turns out the extra rest didn’t fend off early labor. She came into the world as a 34-week-old premie. She was an impressive five pounds, two ounces and eighteen and half inches, which was good size considering she was a month and a half early. She reached all of her milestones on time despite her prematurity, which made me wonder if at just a few months old she was already able to pick up on the subtleties of verbal reward.
As she grew, she was the girl who spoke just as loudly with her expressions and body language as with her words. She never felt ashamed to wear her heart on her sleeve and often fascinated oodles of friends and acquaintances with her academy award winning displays of elation, despair and ambivalence. Who knew that indifference actually warranted an audience, but Vivian had the power to sell the tickets to even the most unremarkable street corner performances. Frank and I had learned to sift through her emotional peaks and troughs, while still trying to make sure she knew that there was nobody else like her and she should never change.
We’ll never forget Vivian’s very first day of kindergarten. She had learned to tie her sneakers the summer before through utter persistence. She refused to wear those childish shoes with Velcro, so she endeavored to accomplish the task of tying her shoe just months before the biggest day of her life. Most of the time it was just a big mess of laces, but every so often she would get the bow to do what she wanted and display with more elegance than Vanna White a wobbly, sagging bow that only survived until Vivian took a single step. Then it would be reduced to nothing more than a limp pair of shoestrings.
She arrived her first day of school along with the slew of 4 and 5 year olds who were crying, holding their parent’s leg or throwing tantrums. We convinced Vivian that all of the kindergartener’s would be with their parents the first day, just so she would allow us to walk her into the school. She waltzed in front of us, already establishing herself as the leader of the pack.
She passed by all of the less than happy kids, even stepping over a child who had decided to lie down on the ground and thrash, fitfully. She walked right over to her kindergarten teacher and stated, “Good morning, Mrs. Williams. My name is Vivian Harper.” She stood up straight and reached out her right hand, as if she were applying for a position at a prestigious law firm.
Mrs. Williams, at first, was unsure how to decipher young Vivian’s maturity and forwardness, but she couldn’t help but shake her hand right back and laugh.
“Why, it is so nice to meet you Vivian.” She crouched down a bit to Vivian’s level.
“Would you like to help me call roll this morning?”
“Absolutely!” Vivian yelled as she for once, showed her age by grasping her hands in front of her chest and bouncing up and down. Her pigtails, complete with the big, round balls on the end, swung back and forth with each jump.
Mrs. Williams stood up, called for all of the children to find their seat and grabbed a sheet off of her desk. The teacher, who appeared to be in her mid-forties, sat in the child-sized seat next to her desk and whispered each child’s name in Viv’s ear so that she could call the name aloud. Although each name was being secretly provided to her with each breathy word from her teacher’s mouth. She followed along each line with her finger as if she were reading it, then acknowledging each students grunt, hand, cry or scream just as she would a ‘present’ or ‘here’ response. And as an added touch, she continued freelance after the end of rolecall, by stating with authority, “if everyone could please take their seats, we could get started with kinny-garden.”
Just one year earlier, Vivian told us that she needed to learn how to water my plants or else she would never be ready for kinny garden. Frank and I got a big kick out of that and figured it warranted a call to my parents and some of Vivian’s aunts and uncles. Since then she has come to the understanding that it isn’t actually a garden, yet the pronunciation still remained.
Vivvy had both hands in an ‘I don’t know’ position by her shoulders, which made me laugh because she was, at times, a mirror image of my antics.
“Don’t you all want to start having fun?” She was truly asking each student if they were ready to have fun.
Some students who were flailing around, not paying attention were now staring at Vivian with puffy red eyes and tear stained cheeks. They nodded their heads. Of course they wanted to have fun! Frank and I slipped out quietly, not that Vivvy would’ve noticed anyway. Yep, she was a natural leader, and she liked it that way.
The house was so calm and silent without Vivian there, and I was antsy to walk to her school at noon to pick her back up. Then, of course, she was not ready to come home. She wanted to stay and play with her friends, and she proceeded to introduce us to each and every little kid in her class. They all wanted to give her a hug understanding that after telling Vivian it was time to go for the tenth time, she really did have to go.
Not much changed as Vivian progressed through elementary school and into junior highschool. She continued to attract people with her benevolent wickedness, and she continued to bore herself with the task of engaging others. She was always looking for the next best thing.
Vivian experienced everything there was available to her from painting, cooking, sewing, theatre, choir and cello, which we were hesitant for her to do, because of the amount of money cellos cost, so we told her to think about it for a week. If she still wanted to play the cello after a week, we would get it for her. So, from her room, we heard Rostropovich, who was apparently a cellist of some renown. She told us all about him over dinner after speaking with her music teacher. Vivian said he was the bee’s knees, a phrase that my daughter loves and continues to use to this day. She came home earlier that week with a record and record player that her music teacher lent her in hopes that it would inspire her to play and convince us that she was serious. So, one week after our ‘think about it’ proposal was recommended a very inspired Vivian and convinced parents went to the local music shop. A place that I had never set foot in before and would only set foot in one more time 12 weeks later when I tried to get some money for that darn cello after the music recital was finished and Vivian had moved on to who remembers what. Whatever it was that she moved on to, I’m sure she thought that it was going to change the world. Oh, my Viv, her mind moved faster than the speed of light, and so did the years.
Before we knew it, our baby girl was in high school. She continued to lead her friends into whatever endeavor she wanted to do at that moment, which seemed to change daily, and she continued to be dramatic. It’s a wonder that she ever settled down with that sweetheart, Drew. Bless his soul for putting up with her seemingly harmless, but time consuming mischief.
I could count the number of men Vivian dated on one hand. Everybody was hopelessly flawed in Vivian’s eyes. ‘Poor guys’, she would tell us, ‘they have no idea what they want from life.’ I found myself taking the absurdly untraveled road where I was hoping to see Vivian make a mistake here and there. Not big ones, of course, but it was important to Frank and I that Vivian realize that she wasn’t, nor did we wish she was perfect.
We would’ve welcomed a bad note every once and a while from school or her arriving a few minutes past curfew. Okay, so this did happen one time, but a sort of Twilight Zone episode ensued as Vivvy scolded her date for being such a screwoff and telling him that if he didn’t value and abide by her and her parents’ rules he could find another girl to disrespect. We all stood there speechless as she flipped her long, brown hair and stomped up the staircase. Not till we heard her bedroom door slam did any of us realize the awkwardness of the situation. She left the poor guy standing in our foyer stunned and on the brink of melting into a sea of tears. And can you believe it? We consoled him for bringing our daughter home mere minutes past the curfew deadline. He was quite shaken by this extremely radical display of disparity, and we wouldn’t let him leave until he composed himself. Poor guy, I agree, but maybe there was something to not knowing what you want from life.
So, you can imagine my surprise when I got a call from Vivian, who was in the bathroom, and not because she was at a party and called to talk about how stupid the boys were there. She wanted to tell us that she was at a boy’s house, and she really liked him.
I had dozed off on the couch, not worrying about the curfew situation really anymore since Vivian restricted herself more than we ever could’ve, so I had to rub my eyes, sit up and ask, “Where are you and who are you with? I thought you were at a party with the girls?”
“I was, but we went to the school play earlier, and the guy who played Macbeth did an awesome job. I sat by him in history last quarter, too. He’s smart, and his performance tonight was breathtaking! I thought maybe he would come to the party, but when he didn’t, I came to him.” I was trying to let these rapidly sputtered words sink in, as I realized that normal parents might be a little worried at this.
“What is his name? Do you even know him that well? Where does he live?”
Vivian laughed into the phone. “His name is Drew Tress, no I actually don’t know him that well, but daddy always said that I am a good judge of character. Oh, and he lives at…..can’t remember the house number but on Cedarhill Street, just north of Grand Avenue, right off of 7th. It is a white house with dark blue shutters and his beat up VW bug is in the driveway. I love that he drives such a beat up car.”
I thought to myself, ‘Who are you and what did you do with my daughter?’
“Mom, I’ve been in here a long time, he probably thinks I am pooping or something, so I’ve gotta go. Love you, see you in two hours, bye!” And in a conversation that ended as suddenly as it began, I continued to hold the phone to my ear, wondering if my little girl had finally found the one man on Earth worthy of her love.
